In Wilderness (28 page)

She chews greedily, swallows fast. How good it felt, that strong young plant between her teeth. How good it feels inside her, a swallowed blessing. She cuts another, then another, eats them quickly, then eats more. Later there’ll be time to savor them; right now she crams them in her mouth, chews, swallows. Glorious to hold so much new life inside her. Glorious to contemplate a future of long, warm days and green, growing things that spring up everywhere she walks.

She eats until all the fiddleheads are gone, wipes her mouth with the back of her dirt-covered hand, pockets her knife. She has left none for tomorrow—and none for Danny, who eats nothing anyway but meat. Her mouth still tingling with the ferns’ green taste, she gets up from the dirt, brushes off her hands and starts for home.

But something’s wrong, her belly’s knotting up with cramps. She wraps her arms around the sudden pain, bends over, throws up in the undergrowth.

Quick, kick dead leaves over it to hide it. That way it won’t have happened.

She wipes her mouth with her palm. Won’t look at the small pulse throbbing on the blue-veined inside of her wrist. Won’t imagine things. She has not had enough fresh vegetables through winter, that’s all. Her stomach is unused to so much roughage. Hereafter, she’ll be careful; it won’t happen again. In the unlikely event Danny asks after the fiddleheads, she’ll say they never did come up. This lie creates a little lift inside her, as if from some small life that’s all her own.

“E
XCUSE ME
,
SORRY
,
CAN
’
T HELP IT.
”

She pushes away from the dinner table, overturns her bench in her haste to get outside, then dashes down the path, hands clapped over her mouth. Walks the few more steps to the outhouse, sits inside it, panting.

These last few days she can’t bear the greasy smell of cooking meat. It’s the same with many vegetables, even those from the garden. Not only is she throwing up her food again, her skin has grown so sensitive to even her own touch that she feels peeled. And she is so tired every day. It’s all coming back, one horror at a time. Soon she will need to fight to hang on to the memory of her name.

And worse, oh, so much worse, already she no longer wants him. Not in that fierce, hot way she always has. Wants now only the rocking and the cradling, and once in a great while to love him slower, sweeter, deeper than she ever has.

And then for him to go away so she can sleep forever. She has not thought for a long time about the gun’s dull metal. Her hands shake.

Meanwhile the light is fading. She needs to get back to the cabin before he thinks of coming after her. So much effort, getting up. More than anything, she yearns to curl into a tiny bundle in the corner where she saw the corn snake that first morning.
Hushabye, hushabye
.

Don’t think crazy thoughts. Go wipe your mouth off at the creek and head for home.

“What the fuck’s got into you?” He’s sitting by the cold hearth, lashing reeds into a fish trap, jerking the leather tight.

“I had to go.”

She turns away, goes in the kitchen to scrub the dinner plates before their meaty odor makes her sick again. Scrubs so fast it looks like anger. Done.

“I’ve got a headache. I’m going to bed.”

“Shit. Work all day, come home to this.” Mimics her: “ ‘I’ve got a headache.’ ”

He flings a piece of rawhide on the table, gets up and grabs the fireplace poker, jabs repeatedly at a single red ember in the ashes.

Upstairs, she scrunches into a far corner of their quilts, wishes she could hide herself and hates the moon for shining.

Wishes she still lived alone. Wishes he would come and hold her. Even now.

H
E
’
S STANDING IN THE LOFT
,
BUTT NAKED
,
KICKING AT THE QUILTS
she’s balled up under like a possum. Bitch didn’t used to hide from him like that.

“How come you lay around all day?”

“I don’t. I go down to the garden. Times when you’re away.” Mumbles into the quilts, won’t even poke her head out.

He squats beside her, sniffs a couple times, makes a huge, deliberate point of it. “You smell weird.”

She, by God, sticks her head out now. Eyes all wide. “Weird how?”

He shrugs. “It’s like, we used to taste, smell pretty much the same. Now you smell … I don’t know … different. Down there. More like just you.”

But that doesn’t get it, doesn’t come even close to this wild, animal scent so strong it scares him. Scent that keeps his nostrils flared out all the time craving like hell to smell it. Not a sweet scent like perfume or
flowers. Something rank and strong. If she was lost from him he’d have to follow it and find her. No choice in the matter.

She sniffs lightly, like a prissy girl, wrinkles her nose. “More like me? That’s crazy. How can I smell more like I do already?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know.” She’s starting to piss him off. “What I do know is the shithouse smells like puke.”

He wants to shock her, make her cringe. Wants, needs her to explain it, explain it all away. But she won’t. Just slips back under the covers. Inside his head, his heart, somewhere, he feels one of the rigid parts that keep him held together slide out of its slot.

She peeks out from the blankets. Frightened-possum eyes again.

“I threw up once yesterday. Must have eaten too much meat.”

“Once? Stinks like you’re running a goddamn puke factory.”

She sits up in nervous little jerks, makes a point to keep her body covered with the quilt, something else she never used to do. Fakes a smile and shakes her head like he’s some kind of baby. “I don’t know what’s got into you.”

“Into
me
? Nothing’s got into
me
. It’s what’s got into
you
we’re talking about here.”

Danny bites a ragged thumbnail, chews it smooth so it won’t scratch her skin. Never used to bother with that shit. Never used to matter. Now there’s weird times he curls up in her arms like she’s his mama and that’s all he wants to do. Just stay there, let her hold him through the night. Hold him through all the nights. Other times, she pulls him into her so deep he’s scared he’ll never make it out again. Some dude Jimbo turned him on to that wrote dirty—Henry Miller? Somebody Durrell?—wrote how he got sucked into some woman’s snatch and found a grand piano. Danny and Jimbo laughed for months. Tromped through the jungle pounding make-believe piano keys.

But with her it’s not like that. With her these days he has to leave the house right afterwards to keep from pasting her. That’s how bad he needs to put a mark on her. Some little scar to keep him in her mind times when he’s not around. Scar like a cattle brand that says she’s his, won’t ever leave him.

In any way. For any reason.

Because he knows now something’s wrong. Whatever sickness he
smelled on her that first day has never left her. Just gone underground to jump back up and take her now that he can’t let her go.

He nudges the ball that’s her inside the blankets, kicks it gently.

“Hey. I got to go up to the house.”

“Will you be back for dinner?”

He loves how the words sound so normal, loves their muffled pleading. Waits, wants her to say them all again. Bitch won’t do it. Stays so still he wants to shake her. Shake her till all her fucking teeth fall out.

“Well, now, I got to come back, don’t I. Whether I want to or not. Can’t work up there in the dark.” Yanks his clothes on, pulls his boot laces too tight, slams the door on his way out.

All the way up the mountain he runs things over in his mind. Same as he does the nights he lies awake watching her sleep. Somewhere in everything that’s going on with her, he feels the presence of some cold, dark little snake hole. Something he ought to recognize for what it is—and yet can’t see at all.

Y
EAH
,
AND HE COMES
back that night to sit across from her at dinner, watch her hand shake when she lifts her fork to eat her rice and beans, watch her clamp her mouth tight shut to keep what she just ate inside her. Watch her go to hell in a handbasket, puking under every bush, scuffing a few leaves over it like a sick cat. Yeah, he’s seen that, too. Today. Oh, yeah, he spent time watching.

“What the hell is this shit?” He shoves his plate across the table. It tips onto the floor. “I brought you a rabbit. Why did I spend half a day sneaking up on bunnies before I could kill one? For you not to cook it? What did you do with the goddamn rabbit?”

“It’s outside. On the porch.” Pinchy little mouth. Lines around it, starting to show her age.

“What the hell does that mean?”

“I didn’t want it.” New, dull voice.

“Well, I do.”

“We eat too much meat.”

“Some of us don’t eat nearly enough.”

Jerks open the door—getting to be a habit—lets it slam behind him. Let her eat her goddamn beans and leaves. He pulls the shovel out from underneath the porch, digs a hole outside that she can see from the front window. Bitch needs to know what he’s about, see how he has to feed himself all by himself in order to survive. He breaks dry branches into the hole, brings logs and kindling from the shed, rigs up a green-wood spit and roasts the rabbit on it. Sits in the shadows, keeping one eye on the window, watches her climb the stairs, watches her blow her lantern out. Just like old times, only not. Nope, not at all.

He eats the rabbit with the crickets and the owls for company, leaves its bones for whatever might want them. Goes indoors, starts up to the loft.

“Wash your hands in the sink. Please.”

Yeah. Let her say please. Say it again. Say pretty please, you fucking whore.

“The meat smell on them turns my stomach. Please.”

He does it, washes them a damn sight cleaner than the bitch deserves, then climbs up to the loft, takes off his clothes and pulls her to him so she’ll never get away. Yeah, this is how they’ll die someday. In each other’s arms.

B
REAKFAST AGAIN
. D
AYS MARCH PAST LIKE STUPID ANTS
,
ONE BEHIND
another. She seems smaller lately, like she’s always looking up at him. Makes him want to gently brush her hair out of her face. Makes him want to backhand her.

Because she isn’t like she was. Because he’s losing her.

“You want to go to town?”

“With you?”

“You see anyone else around we could be talking about?”

She sniffles, shakes her head. “Today?”

“I don’t know, let me check my calendar.
Of course
today, why else would I bring it up?”

“Yes, then. I feel well enough to go today.”

She just looks at him. He thought at least she’d smile. It’s trouble bringing her along. He’s only doing it to make her happy, quit balling
herself up under the damn quilts and trembling like a dying field mouse. Should’ve never brought it up.

“You got some weavings you should leave off at that gallery? We can stop on our way home.”

She frowns, shakes her head. “I don’t want to. They’ll take up too much space in the cart. Too much time.”

“Okay, whatever. Come on, get your shoes on then. We haven’t got all day.”

“I’ll only be a minute.”

Bitch hurries like she really wants to go.

M
AYBE
,
JUST MAYBE
,
IT
’
LL
be a good day after all. Dogwoods blooming on the trail, all that white floating through the woods like clouds. He stops the cart and points to one, so she’ll quit looking at the goddamn ground.

“Look there, how pretty.”

She looks up, trips on a tree root.

He grabs her, steadies her. Drops his hands. “You okay?”

She nods.

He glances up at the rocks where he used to hide and watch her. Too bad you can’t turn back the clock. He thought up close she’d smile more. No such luck.

“You having a good time?”

She winces like he’s poked her with a sharp stick. Nods. “It’s a pretty day.”

“That it is.” He picks up a fallen branch, whacks at the undergrowth along the trail. “Yeah. Pretty day.”

“Thank you for asking me to come along.”

He buys her a silk shawl at the same place he got the nightgown. Doesn’t ask her if she wants it, just says to the woman, “We’ll take that.”

“Thank you.” She rubs the inside of her wrist against it, smiles. Dark, Dead Lady circles under her eyes like he hasn’t seen since long ago. Memaw had dark circles, the year before she died.

He wraps her new shawl twice around her shoulders so the fringe hangs down in back. Like his mama used to wear hers so he wouldn’t pull on it the times she held him in her arms.

At the post office, he stands behind her in the line, stares at the dangling fringe. His mama sometimes must have carried him around till the very end. How else could he remember to this day how she kept one hand on his back and one arm under him, her fingers curled around where he could see her nail polish like drops of blood? He never should’ve let her from his sight, should have stayed by her. Guarded her against her memories.

He grabs Katherine’s upper arm, leans close to her ear. “What the fuck are we doing here?”

“I ought to check. I haven’t checked in months.”

“What for? Who’d write you? That dude from Atlanta?” Such a pussy thing to say, why can’t he keep his damn mouth shut?

“No one. No one knows I’m here. It’s just good sometimes to check.”

Miss Flat Voice again. He hasn’t even pissed her off. If she’d get pissed off she’d show some fire at least.

She tells the swishy little clerk her name and he disappears somewhere to check the general deliveries. Brings back an envelope, hands it to her. She stares at it like she’s never seen one, turns it over.

Danny pokes her in her back ribs. “Hey, let me see. You got a letter from Atlanta Dude.” Grabs for it, heart thumping way too fast.

She frowns, pulls it away and shakes her head. “No, it’s some company. Carlisle-Colorado Mining and Development. I’ve never heard of them.”